I must confess that, at a certain point, I was tempted after all not to place puns as clues to the titles to my works. You may remember what Emily Dickinson once aptly observed:

The riddle we can guess

we speedily despise -

not anything is stale so long

as yesterday’s surprise -

I discovered that most people, over time, formulate their own, personal hidden meanings and titles for these images and representations so that the ironic or facetious pun applicable to a single work has at times, even more than once, radically changed over the years.

I also felt that one of my artistic heroes, René Magritte, was occasionally being “too clever by half ”in thinking up puzzling titles to his paintings so as to enhance a sense of mystery in human existence.

I therefore opted for leaving the pertinent humorous titles in place, hoping at the same time to have left some of the mystery and philosophical implications intact.

I sincerely trust you will agree with this decision and interpret it as an invitation towards further humorous and free association of ideas and images. Work in progress !

Lorenzo Scaretti

N.B. The people who like and appreciate thes images and objets d’art - and they are quite a few - fall into two broad categories: one group would like me to explain more and think up even weirder and more absurd alternative titles, while the other would prefer I explain less. Paradoxically, I think they are both right.